I’m self-taught, and can do some fingerpicking and other stuff. The problem is I can’t play “by ear”, so whenever I learn a new piece (espcially fingerstyle) I learn it by rote from tab.
This makes my playing consistent, though rigid and inflexible. But I really want to be able to do stuff like this and/or this.
Both of these guys can play “Alice’s Restaurant” in interesting ways that totally blow away the simplistic version that I know.
So how do I expand my fingerstyle abilities toward what these guys are doing? There’s a lot of tutorial stuff out there, and I’m not sure where to begin.
I can’t watch the videos right now, I’ll have a look after work to see what they’re up to. A couple of questions.
How much theory do you know? Do you know how to construct chords, and how different scales work?
Do you do any practise of basic scales and arpeggios? If all you practice are specific pieces then you won’t have the generalised skills to branch out.
One way to start would be to pick a fairly simple song whose melody you can hum. First learn to finger pick the chords using simple rolls and a root or alternating bass. Can you do that already? Can you finger pick a basic rhythm without tabs? If you know how to play some finger-style songs from tabs, your fingers already know some basic rolls. Anyway, back to that simple song. Let’s say it’s The Beatles’ I’ve Just Seen A Face, or Amazing Grace if you want something slow. Once you can play the rhythm using rolls you already know, find the melody within the chords you’re playing. This will often be a note you are already fretting, but will sometime be a note you’ll need to add to the chord. Experiment with the picking pattern so that you pick the melody note at the right time. Then try to pick the melody note with a bit more emphasis than the other notes in the chord. At first the melody might not be recognizable to someone else, but as you progress it will emerge from the rhythm.
I think the best way to learn anything on the guitar is to hang out with other players. Is there an acoustic music shop where you live? Not a Guitar Center or anything like that, but a bluegrass shop? Do some hanging out, make some friends, and absorb and swap info. It’s more fun than laboring over tabs.
Mach Tuck, I sympathize. I don’t play much anymore, but I got to about the same point as you. I had a repertoire of about thirty picking tunes that I could play, but I couldn’t stray one note from the versions I had learned. I was playing some fairly standard learn-how-to-pick stuff, but also some John Fahey and even a couple of Leo Kottke’s easier pieces. I learned most of these tunes from tab, and it bothered me that my ear didn’t seem to be helping at all. I could never really get the accents and the rhythms that Kottke got on, say, The Fisherman. I played about two hours per day, five or six days per week, and had a small amount of theoretical training. But even with simple tunes I was stuck, metronomically picking the notes I had learned.
I wish I had some decent advice here, but I don’t. I decided to accelerate my practicing, and ruined my left wrist (typing eight hours a day didn’t help any, I have to admit). In my opinion, though, you just have to put in the hours and the effort. Learn some theory, as has been suggested, and sooner or later I think it begins to happen. At the time I stopped playing, I had just written a couple of very short simple tunes. If you can’t pick up someone else’s music by ear, try writing your own. You won’t be the only guy who got started that way. I’ve read numerous interviews with guitarists who said ‘I couldn’t play any of the stuff I heard on so-and-so’s albums, so I just started writing my own.’